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ESF 15:Education as Self-Fashioning: College and the Good Life

Academic study was once concerned with one overriding question: what is the best way to live our lives? What are the ultimate goals and values we should privilege over others? Today we often assume that value choices are personal. But many teachers in Antiquity (and beyond) thought that these choices needed to be debated, and that education demanded that we debate and think them through. In this class, we ask questions about the good life, but we also consider whether college is still designed to raise such questions. We will read thought-provoking, influential texts from Antiquity and modern times, by such writers as Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Montaigne, Voltaire, DuBois, and Martha Nussbaum.nFriday lectures will be held 9:30am-10:50am in Bishop Auditorium.

ESF 15A:Education as Self-Fashioning: College and The Good Life

Academic study was once concerned with one overriding question: what is the best way to live our lives? What are the ultimate goals and values we should privilege over others? Today we often assume that value choices are personal. But many teachers in Antiquity (and beyond) thought that these choices needed to be debated, and that education demanded that we debate and think them through. In this class, we ask questions about the good life, but we also consider whether college is still designed to raise such questions. We will read thought-provoking, influential texts from Antiquity and modern times, by such writers as Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Montaigne, Voltaire, DuBois, and Martha Nussbaum.

| UG Reqs: THINK, WAY-A-II

ETHICSOC 20:Introduction to Moral Philosophy (PHIL 2)

What should I do with my life? What kind of person should I be? How should we treat others? What makes actions right or wrong? What is good and what is bad? What should we value? How should we organize society? Is there any reason to be moral? Is morality relative or subjective? How, if at all, can such questions be answered? Intensive introduction to theories and techniques in contemporary moral philosophy.

(Formerly
CLASSHIS 133/333.) Political philosophy in classical antiquity, focusing on canonical works of Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. Historical background. Topics include: political obligation, citizenship, and leadership; origins and development of democracy; and law, civic strife, and constitutional change.

This course offers an introduction to the history of Western political thought from the late fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries. We will consider the development of ideas like individual rights, government by consent, and the protection of private property. We will also explore the ways in which these ideas continue to animate contemporary political debates. Thinkers covered will include: Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Edmund Burke, John Stuart Mill, and Karl Marx.

ETHICSOC 170:Ethical Theory (PHIL 170, PHIL 270)

This course serves as a rigorous introduction to moral philosophy for students with little or no background. We will examine ideas from four important figures in moral thought: Plato, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and John Stuart Mill. Each of these philosophers played an integral role in the development of moral philosophy, because each offers thoughtful, compelling answers to some of the discipline¿s most central questions. These questions include: What is involved in being a good person or living a good life? What should we value, and why? How are we motivated by morality? How (if at all) is morality a matter of what is customary or conventional? How (much) do the consequences of our actions matter? Importantly, this course is not only about learning what others have thought about the answers to these (and related) questions. By considering and criticizing the ideas and arguments of these philosophers, the aim is to cultivate our own ability to think systematically, rationally, and reflectively, and to make up our own minds about how to answer these kinds of questions.

ETHICSOC 172:History of Modern Moral Philosophy (PHIL 172, PHIL 272)

A critical exploration of some of the main forms of systematic moral theorizing in Western philosophy from Hobbes onward and their roots in ancient ethical thought. Prerequistes are some prior familiarity with utilitarianism and Kantian ethics and a demonstrated interest in philosophy.

(Graduate students register for 276.) Why and under what conditions do human beings need political institutions? What makes them legitimate or illegitimate? What is the nature, source, and extent of the obligation to obey the legitimate ones, and how should people alter or overthrow the others? Study of the answers given to such questions by major political theorists of the early modern period: Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant.

ETHICSOC 233R:The Ethics of Religious Politics

Is it possible for a deeply committed religious person to be a good citizen in a liberal, pluralistic democracy? Is it morally inappropriate for religious citizens to appeal to the teachings of their tradition when they support and vote for laws that coerce fellow citizens? Must the religiously committed be prepared to defend their arguments by appealing to 'secular reasons' ostensibly accessible to all 'reasonable' citizens? What is so special about religious claims of conscience and expression that they warrant special protection in the constitution of most liberal democracies? Is freedom of religion an illusion when it is left to ostensibly secular courts to decide what counts as religion? Exploration of the debates surrounding the public role of religion in a religiously pluralistic American democracy through the writings of scholars on all sides of the issue from the fields of law, political science, philosophy, and religious studies.